Principal's Report

6th October 2023

Welcome Back

Welcome back to school for all our families. I thoroughly enjoyed my leave travelling around Europe and am now looking forward to busy and productive Term 4. 

A big thank you to Leasyl Richards for being the acting principal in my absence. Thank you to Katrina Spicier, Danni Peters, Nathan Stockton, Virginia Beshara and to all the other staff in the school for supporting Leasyl in my absence. 

Term 4 has many events and activities planned such as the Junior Concert next week, Year 6 Camp, Year 6 Graduation, school leadership elections, prep transition, the school review, book fair and whole school transition day.

Class Placement Requests

Later this term, our teachers will begin creating classes for 2024. During this process the teachers consider friendship groups, student personalities, academic levels and other factors when putting these classes together. Our teachers put a lot of time and effort into ensuring the classes are created in the best possible manner. If you have a request regarding the placement of your child into a class for 2024, please email me by Friday 20th October. 

michael.ramsey@education.vic.gov.au

Requests must only be for significant issues (for example student wellbeing) that must be detailed in the email. Requests for specific teachers will not be considered. If you have made a request before and you think it is still relevant for next year, please do so again. Please do not send an email with a list of friends your child would like to be with. Students will be given an opportunity to list friends they would like to be in a class with for next year. Teachers will ensure students are placed with at least one friend from the list they have provided. 

In cases where parent requests may contradict each other, teachers will use their judgement and knowledge of the student to make a decision regarding class placement. We will do our best to accommodate these requests, but as putting classes together can be complex process, they cannot always be followed. 

Students and parents will be informed of their new class and teacher for 2024 towards the end of the term. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me. 

Parent Opinion Survey

Thank you to all the parents that completed the annual parent survey. We had 198 surveys completed which is an excellent representation of the school community. The results will be available soon and shared with you all. 

Student Exits

Please inform the office (email or call) ASAP if your child will not be attending WHPS in 2024. This helps us greatly when we are planning classes and students numbers for the following year : wheelers.hill.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Works Over the Holidays

There is never a quiet moment at WHPS and the holidays were no exception. Over the holidays a number of works were completed which continue to develop the school grounds and facilities for our students:

• lights in the BER were replaced with energy saving LED lights
• the trees around the oval were pruned and tidied up to make them safe 
• carpets were replaced in two Year 3 classrooms in the B-block
• the area behind the Prep building was landscaped with artificial turf (see below). This has turned an unusable area into a new play space for the preps, we will add some play equipment to this area over the next few months and it will become a dedicated prep only play space in 2024. 

Thanks to Sharyn Veale, Leasyl Richards and Katrina Spicer for helping to manage these works over the holidays.

You may have noticed a new deck out the front of the OSHC building as well. In the next few weeks this will have artificial turf placed around it and it will turn into a versatile, year round space for our students and the OSHC program. 

Term 4 Curriculum Days

There will be two curriculum days in Term 4 on:

Friday 24th November (report writing day)

Monday 4th December (staff planning day for 2024)

Students are not required at school on these days as well as on Tuesday 7th November which is the Melbourne Cup public holiday.

Michael Ramsey

Principal